For today's college athletes, the ability to profit off Name, Image and Likeness opportunities and to transfer without having to sit out a year are good things. But Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo is worried about unintended consequences, like a declining level of commitment from players toward their respective programs.
Izzo said Wednesday on the Stoney & Jansen Show that just about every basketball team in the country "has a problem" in the leadership department.
"As I talk to a bunch of coaches in our league or around the country, there's a couple things that come up. That's one of them: are kids all-in? With these new goofy rules and transfers and this and that, do you ever get kids that are all-in? I feel fortunate that I do, but who knows? Who knows who's talking to these kids? And that part is difficult now for coaches around the country, to be honest," Izzo said.
Izzo has long been opposed to immediate eligibility for transfers, even before it was recently approved by the NCAA. He thinks it teaches student-athletes to avoid adversity instead of confronting it. He often brings up former MSU star Morris Peterson, who wanted to transfer after playing just four games his freshman season, but stuck it out and became a consensus All-American, a national champion and a first-round draft pick who enjoyed an 11-year career in the NBA.
Izzo said we're even "seeing some of the great coaches retire" in college basketball, like Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski, not so much because of age but "because of this system."
"And let's get something straight from me right now: don't worry about me or Michigan State. Worry about the kid," Izzo said. "People are putting a lot of pressure on them: 'Do I need to score more points so I get more NIL money? Do I have people calling me from other schools?'"
Izzo, who's served on numerous NCAA competition committees over the years with some of the most distinguished college coaches, said he recently got a call from a "big-time football coach" who told him rival coaches are "recruiting players right off my team" with the promise of either more playing time or more money through NIL deals.
"And I said, 'Well, it's not starters.' He said, 'No, my starters!' And it's at a big-time program," Izzo said. "So I think you can use it to your advantage, but if we make it transactional like the NBA or the NFL, I think in the end the kids are going to lose out.
"That's my two cents on it, which really doesn't matter, but it's very well thought out because I've been on every committee known to man on this stuff and I've seen it coming for three years. I bet if you talked to 10 coaches, 100 coaches, most of them would say, 'I didn't think it could get this crazy.' But it is and so those are things you have to deal with. Those mental issues that kids go through, you gotta have a lot more office meetings, to be honest."
Izzo, 66, said he's particularly worried about the one-time waiver for transfers because it creates "a lack of accountability."
"Sooner or later, we're teaching guys how to never deal with adversity and then they get to be 25 years old and the real world punches them in the mouth. How do you respond?" Izzo said. "So those are the things I worry about and I'd say the way I (handle) it, I have more meetings than I do practice time."
